In Izacke's Antiquities of Exeter, 1724, appears this wonderful legend, recorded as being from the reign of KIng Henry lll:
"An Inhabitant of this City (for so the Story goes, and 'twill hardly perswade Credit) being a very poor Man, and having many children, thought himself blest too much in that kind, wherefore to avoid the Charge which was likely to grow upon him that way, absents himself seven Years together from his Wife, and then returning again, and accomanying her as formerly, he was within the space of a Year thereafter delivered of seven Children at one Birth, which made the poor Man think himself utterly undone, and hereby despairing, put them all in a Basket, with a full Intent to have drowned them; but Divine Providence following him, occasioned a Lady (then within the said City, and thought to have been the Countess of Devon) coming at this instant of time in his Way, to demand of him what he carried in his Basket, who replied, That he had therein Whelps, which she desired to see, purposing to make choice of one of them; who, upon view, perceiving that they were Children, compelled the poor man to acquaint her with the whole Circumstance; whom, when she had sharply rebuked for such his Inhumanity, presently ordered them all to be taken from him and put to Nurse, then to School, and so to the University, and in process of time being attained to Mens Estate, and well qualified in Learning, made means and procured benefices for every one of them: But such like Eleemosynary Acts in this our Age (wherein the Charity of too too many is waxed cold) are almost vanished."
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